5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
There is now a new Rogovoy Report home
5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller
5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever
5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.17.11
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5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
Opera star to sing arias, show tunes on Saturday, May 21
5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm
5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF
5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend
6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....
5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak
5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
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BIFF UPDATE #3
5.17.09
BIFF UPDATE #3, Sunday, May 17, 2009
Film criticism documentary For the Love of Movies was a bittersweet portrayal of rise and fall of movie criticism. At one time, film reviewing raised the bar for everyone, or at least was a lively, engaging cultural conversation. Then they fired almost all the newspaper film critics to cut budgets. Today, everyone's a critic; we're all the lesser for it.
I tried the Shorts #2 program. Walked out after the third one. Whoever chose this year's short films has very different taste from me.
In the Loop was a brilliantly written political satire -- the Catch-22 or Dr. Strangelove for today. There was so much laughter in the house we missed half the lines and must see it again on DVD when it comes out. The English script was written with such incredible wit and delight in the most colorful language.
Once More with Feeling was corny and disappointing. It boasted good acting, but it was hollow at the core, like the karaoke driving the main story. It was something of a throwback to ethnic romantic comedies like Moonstruck in the way it reveled in its milieu. However, Drea deMatteo was brave and gutsy in the film, which the filmmakers on hand admitted they had a difficult time editing.
Uma Thurman did a heroic job in an otherwise bland Motherhood. This was a movie filmed too soon, before they figured out why it needed to be a movie and not a short story. It lacked any cinematic reason for being (other than Thurman's and Minnie Driver's performances).
Summer Hours was a gorgeous meditation on the legacy of French family and estate. Epic in scope, it asked essential questions: does a family's legacy lie in a place and in objects, or is it all in memories. What if the memories are flawed and the place and objects are truer to reality? Its scenes of a rambling French country house were alone worth the price of admission.
You'd like to think that President Obama is onto the proto-Fascist practices of the food industry as portrayed in Food, Inc., a terrifying documentary that paints corporate "agriculture" as Fascism incarnate. After watching, You willy never enter a supermarket again without looking over your shoulder or reading labels closely -- not that they will tell you the truth, anyway. The giant food processors didn't allow filming in their factories, and threatened anyone who talked to the filmmakers with retaliation. Given the governmentt subsidies this industry receives, U.S. citizens have a right to know what they're hiding.
Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight was hugely disappointing. It lacked perspective on its subject, the renowned graphic designer. Instead it was merely an extended interview and worshipful tribute that didn't much inform or educate about Glaser, his life or his work. It was hagiography, not filmmaking. It violated many of the principles to which Glaser himself gave lip service, although he came across as a little too glib.
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